Five Cities in New Hampshire Approved Sports Betting
New Hampshire is one of the states that this year legalized sports betting and just a few days ago five cities within the state decided to approve betting locations within their borders, while three didn’t.
The state capital, Concord and Nashua, voted against a proposal to allow bricks-and mortar sportsbooks within their borders, while Manchester, the state’s largest city, voted to allow them. Under the new law, up to 10 retail sportsbooks may be open across the states while up to 5 will go online. However, cities and towns were given the chance to decide about the locations within their boundaries.
For that purpose, nine cities had the question of sports betting, and five approved the measure while four voted down. Franklin City became the first in October to allow sports betting due to its early election. Other cities besides Manchester and Franklin City were Laconia, Berlin, Claremont, and Somersworth. On the other hand, cities that made the same decision as Nashua and Concord were Dover and Rochester which refused to have sportsbooks within their borders.
The Governor Supports Sports Betting
Sports betting election had great support from the governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, who tweeted:
“Sports betting is the right bet for New Hampshire! I urge voters in Manchester, Nashua, Dover, Rochester, Claremont, Berlin, Laconia, Concord, and Somersworth to allow retail sports betting in their cities!”
In July this year, the state legalized sports betting by authorizing up to 10 physical locations and 5 online sportsbooks. The Granite State has since entered into negotiations to run retail, mobile and lottery products with DraftKings and Intralot.
On top of that, in the first half of 2020, the Lottery sports betting ventures are expected to go live all across the state of New Hampshire. The executive council of the state will approve sports betting contracts, which is likely to be on the agenda of the council for its meeting which will take place on November 20.
New Hampshire Is New England’s Second State to Legalize Sports Betting
In the summer of 2018, Rhode Island was the first state in New England to legalize sports betting and now the state has two physical locations and two online sportsbooks which are partners of the state lottery. New Hampshire is New England’s second state to legalize sports betting. Nevertheless, the lottery in New Hampshire will have its own mobile offering, but commercial operators will run physical and online sportsbooks.
People who are fans of sports betting and gambling are excited to have sportsbooks within the borders of their cities and the possibility to make sports wagers via their laptops and mobile devices without leaving the comfort of their homes.
With this New Hampshire made a huge step forward not only in the gambling industry but also in the state’s economy as it is well known that sports betting brings a significant amount of revenue to states which have online sports betting legalized within their borders. Furthermore, chances are that in the future New Hampshire will be adding additional operators in after selecting DraftKings to run both physical and mobile sportsbooks and Intralot to run the Lottery app.